There are numerous areas of application for multiscale HSP-VAT methodology of modeling, experiments and data mining in medicine. One of the most cost burdened is the drug development process. "Nearly one quarter of drug candidates are dropped from development due to a lack of clinical efficacy. Many more demonstrate therapeutic activity but cause toxic or intolerable side effects, or are poorly metabilized. By the time these compounds enter the clinic and are tested in human patients, billions of dollars have been invested in their development, and these losses late in the pipeline are a major contributor to the spiraling R&D inflation and declining productivity plaguing the pharmaceutical industry." - Glaser (2004).
Then, the important role is placed onto the cell-based assays for compound screening. That is because the need to decrease costs, and improve the chances of getting the drug candidate into the preclinical stage.
As Dr. R.R.Ruffolo (president of Wyeth Research) pointed out (Glaser, 2004) - "Pharma R&D is now the highest-risk industry in the world. For every 10,000 compounds screened, about 250 will move into preclinical development, 10 will enter the clinic, and only one will receive FDA approval."
"The investment required to develop successful drug is an estimated $1.7 billion. This represents about 17% of future sales, or half of the company's profits for that drug."
Our research in this area shows the ways used to model and simulate the processes in drug discovery as those used in the conventional technology related homogeneous matter treatments. That is in spite of the common knowledge that the human tissue different scale objects are genuinely heterogeneous, starting from the cell and up to the human body parts.
References
Glaser, V., "High-Content Cell-Based Assay Technologies", Gen. Engineering News, pp. 1, 13-16, Vol.24, No.12, 2004.
